A boy

One day, I did a job repairing a customer's computer. The customer and his family lived in a very large mobile home park in Orange. The trailers were all crammed together, with tiny carports the only divider between them.

I walked up the spongy steps and in through the open door. He greeted me with a smile, and brought the laptop to the coffee table in the living room, where two boys were doing their school work. One was wearing a shirt, the other was not. He asked them to move, so they moved their sheets of paper to the floor and continued working. I didn't really look at them, as I was occupied with the laptop, getting the necessary tools to work on it.

As I worked, one of the boys, the shirtless one, stood by me and watched me with interest. I was looking down, and as he was at my left, I saw just a flesh-colored blob (I have little to no sight in my left eye). He asked me questions on what I was doing, and I answered them, while unscrewing the many screws that held the bottom of the laptop together. I told him that the computer wasn't working right, and that I was there to replace a part. I showed him the fan, and then looked at him. In fact, both were now watching me, and they looked like they were twins, or pretty close in age.

The boy with no shirt had no arms. On the left side, out of his torso, a single finger protruded. Only the nib though. Part of the shoulder bone could be seen. On his right side, it appeared as if someone had glued a plastic glove to him. All five fingers stuck out, as if offering a handshake. The fingers were opaque, and you could see that there was no bones within. With each movement of his body, the fingers flapped and waved. The thumb was pointed skyward, as if giving the okay, that everything was alright.

My heart sank at seeing this sight. But I still talked to him. His name was Ernesto, he was in 4th grade. He enjoyed school, and he liked math. We had a nice conversation going. Over his shoulder, I could see his father watching us, with a benevolent smile on his face. He seemed proud that his boys were smart. The father calmly told the boys to go back to their schoolwork, as he felt they were bothering me. The boys picked up their pencils, one with his hand, the other with his foot and went back to their work in progress.

As I left, I tried to talk to the father about a hope for the future. A hope that would see the boy with no arms seeing his hands, being able to catch and throw, to craft and to create, to draw, to play music. But the father was not interested in what the Bible had to say. I hoped the boy would learn the truth later, to make his own decision. If not, I hoped Jehovah would extend mercy to this boy, and give him a second chance.